First Impression: Paws Of Coal (PC – Steam) ~ Point-And-Dig

Steam store page

Remember a game I reviewed a while ago, called Speed Limit? Well, the developers behind that action game are back with a new title. It’s a point-and-click adventure called Paws of Coal. And it’s a sort of prequel-ish game to another game. A game I actually published the press kit off, when I still did that. Trip the Ark Fantastic. This game is actually a sort of demo for the gameplay for that bigger game, while it’s also a stand-alone short adventure. Oh, and there is also a demo for Trip the Ark Fantastic out, so if you want to give that a go… You can. Now, let’s get our hands dirty with coal and dive into this adventure. Since, GameChuck gave me a press code to review this game, but they always welcome my 100% honest and unfiltered opinion… So, here we go. It’s something I like as well. If you have any thoughts/opinions to share about this game and/or the content of this article, you are more than welcome to share them in the comment section down below.

Editorial note: this review is written when v1.3 was released. While writing, “Month 1” update got released.

Point-And-Dig

In this game, you play as Charles. A hedgehog helping a good old friend. Your friend is a doctor in a mining town investigating a strange illness that’s making a lot of the mining rabbits quite ill in the town. The rabbits actually went on strike since they think the government isn’t doing enough to help them cure the illness. Since our good friend doctor Hopper isn’t able to leave the clinic to investigate… Since, yeah, somebody has to care for the patients… Charles got tapped.

There is no voice acting in this game, not even a bit of grunting. Yet, the writing isn’t affected by that at all. The writing quality is honestly top-notch. I was honestly afraid that the writing was going to be weak or cheesy because this game is essentially a side project, but I was quite surprised. Quite often, I got quite immersed, and the writing actually made me forget that there weren’t too many animations going on while the story is being told.

At one hand, I could start complaining on how it would be more fun with animations that acted out what was being told… But, that was before I realized the style they are going for. This game almost feels like a (grand)parent telling their (grand)children a bedtime story. One with pictures and text at the side. Yet, the content of the story might not always fit a children’s book… it felt somehow nostalgic while I haven’t heard the story before.

I also loved how realistic they made the writing for the story being in an animal kingdom. In sayings, things like skin is replaced with fur and the actual personality of the animals is worked into the writing as well. The only negative I have is that in some spots, it isn’t consistent on how dialogue is shown. Sometimes the text that’s being spoken is in the same style is the text used for descriptions. Apart from that, I barely found any faults. Here and there, a very minor mistake, but most of them were missing ending ” ” ” at spoken sentences.

This game plays like your typical point-and-click game. Yet, there is no real tutorial that explains to you the movement keys. Thankfully, they are listed in the menu behind a button. But is it a bad thing that this game doesn’t have a tutorial? Nah, I don’t think so. Overall, the game is easy to understand and learn. Especially when you have played other point-and-click games like Broken Sword for example. The big difference in this game is that this game is somewhat open-world. You don’t go from one screen/area to the next, you have the whole world open to you from the start, and it’s up to you to find the answers to its many puzzles.

It’s a side-game?

At various moments, I felt that this project didn’t have the main focus of GameChuck. The following paragraphs might look like I’m going to “destroy” this game, but it’s because this game and concept has a lot of potential… but it has some missing polish that’s making the game look bad and unfinished.

One of the best examples is the saving system. The game saves after each dialogue, automatically. Which is great! You do also have three save slots where you can manually save outside of dialogues, no problems there.

But if the save/load slots don’t give the information IF there is a save file in there and/or WHERE that save is… Then we are having issues. What if you are testing things with the different answers you are giving, and you want to see if the dialogue changes from other characters as well? You almost need to write down which save slot is what. Also, you don’t get a message if you want to save over an existing save slot. The current implementation works technically, but it leaves out a lot of information visually.

Something I feel quite conflicted about is the music and sound effects in this game. While this game has some nice orchestral music, it plays too few. There are too many moments of pure silence, even between the tracks repeating. Also, there aren’t enough tracks to play as background music, which means that you hear the same track over and over again. A bit more music tracks as background music would have been amazing.

All in all, the sound effects are great. But, at certain moments, I feel that there are sound effects missing. Especially when you do an action that doesn’t or won’t work. A perfect example of this is the first time you get the prompt to press the “J” key to open up your journal. When you are in dialogues, you can’t open your journal. I was mashing my “J” key, and I thought I encountered a bug. But no, it’s just that the journal doesn’t open during dialogues. In those cases, I’d either play a sound effect or show a little pop-up that communicates that with the player. That way, things don’t feel rough around the edges.

This is something I felt here and there. That this game has some very rough edges. The controls are another great example of that. Currently, there is support to play this game alone with the mouse. Yet, I don’t recommend you do that in the current version, since going in and out of doors doesn’t work currently. Also, there is a roll feature that lets you quickly roll from one place to another… Yet, good luck trying to do that with the mouse controls! It doesn’t work. I highly recommend that you play this game mostly with the keyboard controls. They work a lot better, are snappy and extremely responsive. Also, the tooltips shown on the screen relate to the keyboard controls anyway.

Going for more

Listen, according to this tweet… This game is the first part of the Ark Fantastic universe. Honestly, this gets me quite excited. Since, if we are going to see more games with this high level of world building, writing and visual presentation, we are going to be in for a treat.

Yes, the visual presentation of this game is amazing. Like I said earlier in this article, this game looks like a children’s book you are reading at night to your children. It’s colorful, well detailed, and the atmosphere makes the art almost come to life.

The game also has a handy “TO DO” list for when you are unsure what to do next. You can also put your current theory in your journal to try and find the actual reason and cure for the illness going around in the Burrows. It’s a great detective/point-and-click game that makes you think about what characters are saying and really take notes. I even had several notes on the mystery sprinkled in between my notes for this article.

You can investigate so much, it’s insane. The comments you get on various things, helps to build the world quite a lot. Like, you can also inspect almost every art work to learn more about the world. There are also sometimes more ways than one to get the information you need. You can either go research it via books, or you can research it by going around and talking to the other characters. I especially love the moments where things click and when I finally have a new lead to hunt down next.

This game might be rather short, but it also manages to have multiple endings, so it also has replay value for a point-and-click game, even. I have to be honest, I have been playing this game for 3 – 4 hours, research it quite extensively, and I haven’t solved the mystery just yet. I feel like I’m close, but I haven’t beaten it yet. That’s why I’m only writing a first impression.

But, this game also gave me an amazing first impression at the future of this game, and its universe. Yes, it has some things to polish and work out, like at one place in the game, you can see the ending of the map. Thankfully, we have a developer that updates this game with various quality of life improvements and since the release on May 2nd, we got 4 small updates to the game. Here is one they can fix in the next update, since the “month 1 update” removes the version number… It might be great to also remove that toggle to show it or not from the option menu, don’t you agree?

Speaking about those toggles, this game has some interesting settings. It also has a setting that gives you somewhat of a behind the scenes look at how the game works and was created behind the scenes. It doesn’t contain too many spoilers, if any, I think. You can also make this game harder on yourself by hiding tooltips, so you have to find out what you can interact with and how. But if you want to play this game, I highly recommend that you enable tooltips to not get lost.

To avoid me rambling too long about this game and maybe going into spoiler town… I’m going to wrap up my article here with the following conclusion. This game might have some rough edges in terms of UI, sound effects and music… But, all in all, this game works and it works good. I think that this game has something for every adventure/point-and-click game lover. Knowing the studio behind this and how they take feedback to heart, I’m quite sure that this game and the next games in this universe will grow and become even better.

Don’t misunderstand me when I say that this game has some rough edges, they are anything but game breaking. I have played this game on and off during this month and I haven’t gotten any crash and a very stable framerate. I was excited to see what this interesting point-and-click game “Trip the Ark Fantastic” was going to be and now that I got my first taste of it, I’m hooked. If the next game also polishes the save/load UI and has more music and uses more sound effects to communicate things with the player… I may be in trouble as a reviewer since I may not have too many things to critique anymore.

Give this game a chance when it sounds at all interesting to you. It’s a great experience and I’m conviced that with our feedback the developers can bring us amazing games in this interesting and rich universe. Now, I have to write my usual ending paragraphs and publish this article so I can go back to solving the mystery of the illness. Maybe we should discuss theories in the comment section? I’ll repeat it for the last time, yes this game has rough edges but the positive outweigh the negative by a lot here. Besides, a lot of the rough edges can and may be patched in the future… So yeah.

With that said, I want to thank you so much for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you in another one! But until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

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Game Quicky: Snow Problem (PC – Steam) ~ Sorting The Snow

Steam store page

It’s winter. So, that means that snow is falling. Snow is something you can’t stop and that might cause a problem. But, not in this game. In this game, the concern is that we need a certain amount of colored snow to beat the level before the time limit is up. This game is created by Dave Seaman from whom I reviewed games in the past. He was the developer behind The Rat Pack and Captain Disaster in: Death Has A Million Stomping Boots. Is the 3rd game I’m going to review from him a recommendation or is it one where he swings a miss. Let’s find out together in this Game Quicky article. For full disclosure, the developer provided me with a press key to play this game, but you may rest assured that you’ll get my 100% honest opinion on this game. And as usual, I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Let’s save the snow

This game is the perfect easy to understand game. This game is perfect for small sessions when you have a bit of time to kill. The levels in this game are short and easy to understand, so it has that one more round mentality.

The controls are extremely easy. You basically only need the mouse to control this game. While there are keyboard shortcuts for the menu, the game is played with the mouse. It’s a little finicky at first to know at what speed you need to draw the lines, since the faster you go… The more holes there are in your line.

The biggest challenge in this game is to know where and how to draw your lines. Since, momentum is still a thing, so you really need to be careful so that you don’t screw yourself over by drawing a bad line. That’s why on the store page the developer recommends playing with a mouse… Since, this game with a trackpad, auwch. I tried it, and it wasn’t so much fun anymore.

To get used to the game, I highly recommend that you put the prep time to the highest setting in the main menu. The game can be pretty challenging and turn into a trail and error puzzle game, but the short prep time is really irritating if you aren’t used to the game. But, if you want more challenge, you can switch the difficulty easily by changing the prep timer.

A lot of the music in this game is famous classical music and, while I would have loved some original pieces by the developer as well, they fit the game perfectly. There are various tracks which play randomly in the background. It’s almost like you have your favorite music app playing a playlist in the background. Maybe it would be fun if the name of the track shows up somewhere and there is a sort of mini-player. But, that’s possibly a bit of a wild idea.

There is also a level editor in this game. So, that means you can share self created levels with other players. There is no Steam Workshop integration, but if that ever comes it would be nuts. But, the level files are small and easy to share… And the developer invites you to share your levels with him and who knows, they might be added as bonus levels in a future update.

Now, if you are unsure about this game… There is even a demo out of this game. So, you can easily try it before you decide to buy this game for the low price of 4€. You can also bring your progress of the demo to the full game which is an amazing feature.

There are also adorable punny Steam achievements in this game. They are extremely easy to get, but the pun filled nature really adds to the charm of this game.

Something I really like is how you don’t need to play all the levels in order. I really dislike the 21st level. I have tried various times to beat it, but I’m unable to. But, since you always have a handful of levels unlocked, you can just skip that level and keep it for later. You also unlock the next levels so, you don’t have to worry that one level will block you from seeing the rest of the game.

But not all is good in this game, sadly, I do have a few things to criticize.

Let the snow melt

There are a few minor issues in this game. First, there isn’t a safe way to alt-tab out of the game. Usually, when you use alt-tab OR the Windows key to go back to the desktop, you can quickly look something up on the internet and return to the game. Not in this game, since when you re-open it… The resolution goes off, and all color is drained. I had this issue on three laptops I tested this game on. So, be careful if you alt-tab.

But, that’s a minor point. Since the levels are rather short and the game opening so fast, it’s easy to recover from that. Something that I do find a bit disappointing is that there is no pause feature during gameplay or a speed-up feature. Several times I was tapping my fingers on my desk because I knew I was going to beat the level, but I had to wait until it had played out.

Something I’d personally change is that the “how to play” is something that appears before you play your first level. While the gameplay is pretty simple, it didn’t click for me right away. It was easy to figure out after a bit of messing around, but I find it strange that this game has a sort of tutorial but hides it in the main menu.

Which brings me to something else, and it’s something I also have a solution for. This game doesn’t have a colorblind mode. And this is a big issue in this game since this game is highly based on color. One solution is to drastically change the colors OR use different shapes somehow. Like squares that aren’t filled or triangles. Or a 3rd solution is that you can see the color of the snowflake when you hover over it… But, that might not be too handy in the short levels. Now that I think about it, I think drastically changing the colors when somebody enables colorblind mode would be the best solution.

A minor thing I’d love to see changed as well is that after the prep timer ran out and the snow starts falling, that timer turns into a timer that shows for how long the snow will fall. While you have a little more time than there is snow falling, it would just be an additional touch on the game.

Something I have to bring up in the negatives is that this game can be repetitive for some people. That’s because this game only has “one” mechanic. You can only draw those brown lines to try to guide the snow to the spot you want too. I have a few ideas for other mechanics like having to draw those colored lines yourself OR having weight switches to open another path. And wouldn’t it be cool if there were levels where you have to avoid ANY snow from reaching the bottom? There is a lot more that can be done with this game and maybe food for thought for a sequel or spin-off? Or maybe DLC?

The final nitpick I have is, that ALT+F4 isn’t working. Only the assigned keys in the menu’s are working and that can throw you off when you forget about that. I got used to it, but it was a bit annoying sometimes when I accidentally alt-tab’ed out of the game to write this article and I had to force shutdown the game via task manager.

The final suggestion I’d give is that in the main menu… It would be amazing to see a small level preview pop-up when you hover over the level. It would be handy if you want to let your friends try a level without you having to click through all the levels you think that it is.

And with that said, I think it’s high time I wrap up this article. So, in conclusion…

But, what’s the snow quality

Overall, this is a very charming and relaxing game. While it has some rough edges, I think it’s honestly worth it’s €4 price tag. This game is the perfect time waster to waste a few minutes. It can be addictive as well. The game is easy to understand, and it has that “one more try” and “one more level” atmosphere to it.

There are a lot more things that can be done with this game, like more mechanics to spice up the puzzles but like I said in the article. But, the basis of an amazing charming little puzzle game is here. I’d recommend it to everybody who enjoys puzzle and/or casual games. Since, this might be right up your alley. It’s also perfect for to get into gaming in the first place.

I think this will be a game I’ll boot up once in a while to beat a few levels and move on. Especially, when my other games are downloading updates for example. Or I’d boot it up when I want to wind down. Since, I felt very relaxed while playing this game.

Snow Problem is another game by Dave Seaman with a lot of charm I had a blast playing. I’m really glad that the developer asked me to play this game since otherwise I might have just written it off as a silly little game, but under the hood you have a nice relaxing puzzle game.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you so much for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 7,5/10

Game Quicky: In Retrospect (PC – Steam) ~ Automatic Mario

Steam store page

What if, in retrospect, Mario was supposed to be moving on his own? Well, that’s a perfect line to open this article about “In Retrospect”, a runner game developed by Paper Salamander about reflecting on the past. The developer send me a press code for this review, but don’t worry, you’ll get my unfiltered 100% honest opinion on this game. Also, this review is going to be rather short to avoid spoilers, especially because the game is roughly 2 hours long. But, is it worth your time, or should you skip this game outright? Well, let’s find out in this game quicky review while I invite you to leave a comment with your thoughts/opinions on this game and/or the content of this article in the comment section down below.

The good memories

It’s kind of difficult to talk about the story of this game. Especially since this game is a sort of “choose your own adventure” style of game. This game is a sort of self reflection game, without it being a forced self reflection game. The way how the story is handled in this game is wonderful.

The way how certain game mechanics like resetting a level is implemented into the story, it’s charming. As charming as the visuals. The pixel art is extremely well done and makes the game burst with personality.

This game is also excellent at teaching the ropes. Most new mechanics are taught in a sort of safe tutorial level just before the actual level. And, you can skip this tutorial level when you are playing through this game for a second time on another difficulty level.

Usually, I’m not too fond of runner games since I don’t have the best of reflexes when it comes to timing things with the music. Yet, I didn’t find this game too difficult. It was easily to learn the basics of this game and play through it. I played a bit on casual and normal and the balance in this game is really well done.

Besides the story, there are also challenges you can partake in. These are small bonus levels with a special gimmick. You have to reach the highest scores to get on the global leaderboards. Personally, this isn’t really my cup of tea, but it’s an extremely nice addition to the game and I find that it works really well.

The music for this game is pretty good. The tracks are right up my alley, and they really fit the atmosphere of this game like a glove. If the developer ever offers the soundtrack of this game as DLC, I’d buy it right away. Since I want to add the soundtrack to several of my playlists.

The gameplay of this game is really simple but fun. This game is an autorunner, which means your main concern is dodging the enemies and obstacles. During the level, you can pick up items. These items can restore your health. Depending on your answers to the questions you get in between the levels, one pick-up might be more beneficial than the others.

Also, the mechanics slightly change depending on the path you choose. But, if this sounds interesting, I’m going to leave that as a surprise for you to find out! I’m leaving out some mechanics of course, but each level has its own special gimmick or “thing” and I love it. It works wonders in such a short game and really feels like the developer placed a lot of passion in the level design.

The bad memories

There are some things I don’t think work that well. The first thing I want to talk about are the default controls. Overall, the controls are quite responsive, but I think the hover mechanic could have been implemented differently. Quite often I forgot that this game was an automatic runner and I had my hand on the right arrow. Now, when you jump and hold right arrow, you hover in place. This is something that frustrated me during my playthrough.

So, I had to get use to only press the space bar for jumping since this game is an autorunner. But, why is it then that in the options’ menu under controls we have a listing for “directional – arrow keys”. You can’t turn back in this game and only the right arrow is used for hovering. And the up arrow to activate switches, or down arrow when you are running on the ceiling. Which is never really explained in a tutorial in the version I played. But the fact that the down arrow is used for ground pounding is explained in a tutorial level.

Also, you can only choose between WASD & the arrow keys for this movement. This personally bums me out for two reasons. As an AZERTY user, I find it strange that ZQSD isn’t recognized by this game. Also, it would make more sense in my opinion if you were able to find the mechanics to your own keys, so the controls are easier to learn and master for everybody.

A minor complaint I have about the game is that the time you have to reply to questions is just a bit too fast. I barely have any time to read the four answers before I have to decide. On top of that, it’s not always too clear on what the question is. Personally, I think this could have been polished up a bit more.

A second minor complaint I have is that you don’t get a level select after beating the story. It would have been quite fun to be able to play a level with the gimmicks you enjoyed after finishing the story.

Overall, I barely found any bugs in this game… Apart from one. The achievement system is somewhat broken in the version I played. In v1.0.2, the achievements only show up after I have closed the game. You get a small text box instead of the actual achievement pop-up that Steam games usually gives. But, this might be my third minor complaint too… The reason I mention it here is that the amount of pop-ups is a bit ridiculous after you close the game since there are close to 100 achievements in this game.

The truth

Now, is this game worth your 4 bucks? In my honest opinion, if you enjoy casual runner games, yes. This game might be rather short, but it has some unique mechanics that make each level fresh and enjoyable to play.

The biggest issue in this game is with the arrow (or WASD) controls and not being able to rebind them to the keys you want. Apart from that, my complaints about this game are rather minor.

This game is perfect if you have to spend an afternoon, and you are waiting for a big game to download. It doesn’t overstay it’s welcome or get repetitive. This game is walking the fine line of too short and too long and I find it’s balancing perfectly.

Now that my article is writing, I think I’m going for another run since I want to finish the challenges and finally unlock the final challenge. If you are interested in autorunners or casual games, I think this game might be right up your alley. I’m glad that I was able to play this game and that the developer reached out to me. This game gets a personal recommendation from me.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 80/100

Game Quicky: Stygian (PC – Itch.IO) ~ Short Spooks

Itch.io page

It’s that time of year again. It’s time for some spooky scary skeletons. Well, it’s time for some horror. This year, a small developer sends me a mail inviting me to look at Stygian. It’s a short horror game just in time for the spooky season. Today, I’m going to take a look at it and talk about my own opinions on it. It’s free on Itch.io, but the developer accepts donations if you want to see more from them. In any case, in this review I’m taking a look at v1.01. I also have to give a content warning. Since this is a horror game, there will be some scenes that can trigger certain people especially when you aren’t good with anything related to gore and/or death. So, with that said, let’s dive right into this game quicky and let’s see what this game has to offer. But, one thing before that. I want to invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts/opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

Editorial note: this is a rather short game, so I only took screenshots of the first few minutes.

The good

This game takes place in the late 1980s in England. A friend group of girls is doing a creepy sleepover at an abounded church. You play as Katherine, a young girl who arrives a bit late from work but is right in time to hear the creepy backstory. But, when Katherine goes back to her bike to pick up her sleeping bag and enters the church again… Things go horribly wrong.

The voice acting in this game is rather charming. The line delivery is a bit off from time to time but overall, solid performance of the voice actors.

Since this game is rather short by design, I’m not going to go more in depth about the story. Otherwise, I might spoil the experience and the story is best experienced as blind as possible.

Overall, the camera system works pretty well. I adore the Resident Evil – early Fatal Frame static camera shots at weird angles. It really takes you back to the early style of gameplay on the PlayStation and early PS2. Sadly, there are a few instances where the camera angles are a bit janky. For example, in one room you can walk through a door with some draped cloth over it. But, the camera switches a bit too soon, making it a pain when you missed entering the door and trying to get out of the corner, so you can attempt back going into the door. Thankfully, these issues happen far and few between.

Now, this game is a complete throwback since this game also sports some early PS1 3D visuals. This visual style can be a turn off for some people but not for me. I adore the visual style of this game. It fits the story and atmosphere like a glove in my eyes. There are a few minor things I’d have tweaked like making it a bit more clear who is talking, but more on that later.

And the throwback continues with the controls. Do we get tank controls? Yes sir, we do! And I love it. It takes me back when I was playing games like Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and Resident Evil on my PlayStation 1 & 2. Now, sadly this game doesn’t know that other keyboard lay-outs like AZERTY exist… or do they? Since the arrow keys also move. I quickly got used to the controls, and I was able to explore this game pretty fast.

Running around in this creepy church, reading various clues and discovering what really happened is a blast. The game gives you small sparkling hints to most objects you can interact with. So, this is no game of mashing the use key while going over every area to find one or two items.

The music in this game is great. While playing this game, the music reminded me a lot of Silent Hill. The more quote unquote strange ambiance sounds that strange form a melody that’s interesting to listen too but also puts you on edge. This is helped by the silent moments and the excellent sound design with the sound effects to make the game even more creepy.

Something else I want to mention is that this game is available for Windows & MAC. So, if you are a MAC user… You can also play this game.

The bad

There are certain things that this game lacks that make this game a small chore to play. And these are small things that can help make the game more enjoyable to play.

Let me get the biggest problem out of the way first. You can’t skip dialogue at all. Now why is this an issue? Well, in one playthrough I got the wrong ending. Without any game over screen, I got booted back to the main menu. I thought that was it, but then I decided to play through it again, and I found another route and got to experience more. But, that isn’t communicated well enough.

And the opening dialogue is runs on for a bit. But the intro cutscene has a few shots too many and that can’t be skipped either. Other horror games like the Zero Escape series did this a lot better. There you can skip through dialogue you already experienced, and it automatically stops when you encounter new dialogue.

There is something about the visuals I want to mention. The animation in certain cutscenes is a bit lacking. For example, in the opening cutscene, I thought I did something wrong since we see the same scene of Katherine riding her bike twice. It’s a bit confusing and pads out the opening scene too much. But a better example is when we get to meet the other characters for the first time. We are sitting in a circle, and they start talking. Yet, it’s not too clear who is who. A bit later this is better since you can speak to the girls one by one but still, this shouldn’t have been an issue. Just a bit more character animation when somebody is talking would go a long way. It’d also give some scenes a bit more pazzaz, if you understand what I mean.

The final negative I want to mention is that the screen to toggle full screen on and off only works in certain places. Do yourself a favor and toggle full screen on at the main menu. The keybind is F.

The conclusion

This game is an amazing indie game to play at Halloween night. It’s a charming throwback to the early PS1 games that might make you nostalgic to that area.

While this game is a bit rough especially when it’s missing some more modern innovations like skipable text/cutscenes or even a sort of save system, I was able to put those negatives to the side and enjoy my time.

This game isn’t for everyone, especially since some people can be turned off by the visual presentation and/or the control scheme of this game. But I think this game is developed for that niche audience that loves old school horror games and want to experience something like that again.

I think it’s clear if I recommend this game or not. Even with its shortcomings, that might be fixed or improved upon in a patch, this game an enjoyable horror story to play through. It’s charming, and I feel that it’s clearly a passion project done right.

Ant that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. A short article about a short game. I hope you enjoy playing this game and also enjoyed reading this article. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Likewise, I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 70/100

First Impression: Coromon (Switch) ~ Modern Nostalgia In The Making

Official website – Wiki

When you read my blog, it’s no real secret that I enjoy all types of games. But when a game promises to bring back the nostalgic feelings of old school 2D Pokémon adventures with a modern twist… You get my attention right away. It didn’t take me long to buy Coromon when I noticed it in the Nintendo eShop not too long ago. Today I want to talk about this game. Did this game take me back to my childhood nostalgia of grand 2D adventures or is this a game we should all pass upon? Or is it somewhere in between? Let’s find out in this article, while I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.

A journey through the world

When I was attending elementary school here in Belgium, we got the first three Pokémon generations. The 4th generation was right when I went from elementary to secondary school (For the Americans, it’s I mean high school). I can tell a lot of childhood stories about Pokémon. So, when I read the description of Coromon and read the official website and got the impression that this game was like the first Pokémon generations, I was intrigued. Now, Coromon has various different mechanics that make this game stand out from Pokémon. But I’ll talk more about that later in this article. First, let me talk about the story of this game.

In this game, you play as a new battle research in the world of Velua. It doesn’t take long before you get tasked to gather all the Titan Essences spread across the whole region. There are 6 in total, and you’ll to travel over the entire region to find and secure them. Why secure them? Well, there is an evil force going after them as well.

I could be very critical and say that the story doesn’t have a lot to it. But where the story lacks meat around its bones, it makes up for it with a lot of charm. There is no voice acting in this game, but there are emojis that can be displayed above the characters in their head. These are used quite sparingly as well, and they add so much charm to the game. You also don’t play a silent character!

The way the entire story is set up makes the game just quite charming and adorable. It doesn’t really go in depth or make you sit on the edge of your seat, but wraps a warm blanket around you on that cool winter morning when you woke up to watch that new episode of your favorite cartoon. It’s charming, familiar, and relaxing. You know what’s going to happen in the story and can see it from a mile away. But the execution and childlike innocent charm to it just makes it all work amazingly well.

Here, have some Zelda too

So, if you think that this game is only a Pokémon “clone” or Pokémon style game… You’d be very wrong. Sure, at it’s core this game is a creature collecting and raising game that hits a lot of the same beats that the first 3-4 Pokémon generations did. But, something that took me by surprise is that there is also a bit of The Legend of Zelda thrown in.

Yes, you read that correctly. This game combines old school Legend of Zelda & oldschool Pokémon to create something extremely unique in my opinion. First, let me talk about how this game compares to Pokémon.

As you can clearly see from the screenshot in this section of the article, the battle system is turned based. If you are familiar with the battle system of Pokémon, you’ll feel right at home with this one. The unique change in this game is that your Coromon don’t work with powerpoints but with SP for their attacks. Now, what does this mean? Well, each attack costs a certain amount of SP to execute. So, you’ll have to manage your SP quite well.

But, what if you run out of SP? Well, then you can use up a turn to recharge 50% of your max SP. And not only you have to do that, your opponents also have to do that. So, sometimes you’ll have to get lucky or hope that your opponent needs to charge their SP, so you basically have a free shot.

There are also healing items that can heal both HP & SP which makes things more interesting. Since, do you want to heal your health and magic or only one of the two… The strategies you will need to use in this game blow a breath of fresh air in the battle system that I’m really interested to see expanded upon.

Something that this game does better than Pokémon in my opinion is how the XP Share actually works. In modern Pokémon titles, after each encounter all of your Pokémon receive XP. This is something that breaks the game a bit in my opinion. It makes the game a bit too easy. In Coromon, they found an amazing solution. There are these gems you can equip your Coromon with that basically act like an XP Share. If you want all of them to also gain XP, well you’ll have to give all your Coromon a gem. There are different levels of gems as well, giving different amounts of XP. But oh wait, this means that your Coromon can’t carry berries or stat boosting items that can help in battles. So, do you choose to play it safe or risk it for XP?

Now, there is a mechanic made the strategy layers even more interesting. Just like in Pokémon, your Coroman have stats. Apart from gaining XP points after each battle or capture, your Coromon also gain potential. When that potential reaches a certain max, you’ll get three points you can use to increase in one or more stat. You can build your Coromon to your liking. It’s a highly simplied version of EV training in Pokémon but now built in to the core of the gameplay instead of being more reserved for the meta.

Something else quite unique to Coromon is how the four move limit is handled. Just like in Pokémon, each Coromon can have four moves to their disposal. When your Coromon wants to learn a new move after those 4, you’ll have to forget a move. Now, in Coromon this works quite differently. When a new move can be learned, you go into the move menu of that Coromon and set the 4 moves you want. This eliminates the need for a move deleter and a move relearner guy in the world. Since, you can choose the 4 moves you want at any moment outside a battle. So, when you catch a wild Coromon, and they don’t have good enough moves, you can look at their list and adjust it to your playstyle.

The side quest system is a lot easier. When you find a trade, it’s logged in your quest log. In there you can also see the status of your main quest, so you can get right into the game when you haven’t played for a while or when you get stuck.

You also get rewards for reaching certain milestones. These rewards give you points and after a certain amount of points, you level up. Each level has its own useful reward, and you can get to level 50. Currently, I’m going after the 5th Titan, and I’m level 37 out of 50.

The options menu is also a blast! This game actually implemented the difficulty system in a way that Pokémon fans are wishing for in modern Pokémon games. Also, you can change some default behavior of the game after catching a Coromon for example.

I’m certain that I can keep talking about this for quite some time. But all in all, this game is quite unique and charming. My bar was set quite high when I wanted to get into this game, but it’s blown out the water for me especially since it also has some oldschool Zelda mechanics mixed in.

So, the locations of the Titans basically replace your gyms in this game. But, each of those locations could as well be a full-blown Zelda dungeon. Some puzzles aren’t puzzles you expect in a creature collecting game. Sometimes you also need a unique item or gadget to open or get through the dungeon.

You also get a sort of “Shiekah Slate” armband that has several functions that can interact with the world. This armband can help you with quite a lot of things. Like making it easier to find the very plentiful hidden items (and store coupons) in the world to destroying rocks that block your path or even push fallen down trees.

Not only that, each Titan area is unique and has its own mini-story to tell. So yeah, I personally can’t explain it better than Coromon is a mixture of oldschool 2D Zelda and Pokémon with their own unique twist and modern inventions.

It’s so close

I find it very surprising the amount of layers this game has in its gameplay. If I want to talk about the other elements of this game, I think I better move on before this whole article is about the gameplay.

Let’s talk about the controls. This is something where this game shines again. Since this game is multi platform, this game can be controlled via the Joy Cons or even just with the touch screen alone. The controls are quite easy to master and learn and I rarely to never had problems with them. The only tricky thing to get used to is that some buttons have a different feature depending if you hold them down for some time or just press it once. This timing to be sure it’s a short of long press very occasionally tripped me up.

The music in this game is amazing. The music is composed by Davi Vasc, and it’s one of the reasons why I’m a bit sad that I didn’t buy the game on Steam. Since, I would be able to buy the soundtrack and add it to my playlist. The soundtrack of this game fits the game like a glove. While it reminds me quite a lot of the older Pokémon games, it also sounds modern. Just give it a listen, it’s really well done.

The sound effects are pretty good as well. I really got used to certain sound cues this game gives during solving its puzzles and battles. You know you did something right when the sound effects are easy to understand and learn without having a tutorial about it.

All in all, this game hits it out of the park with a lot of unique mechanics whilst combining the gameplay of old school Pokémon and old school Zelda. The fact that this game also has three save slots so you can have three separate adventures is amazing.

This continues to show in the visuals as well. The pixel art of this game add to the charm of the story. I honestly think that if this game would be turned into an anime, a bit of the charm of the pixel art would be gone. The animations of this game also don’t go overboard but help to make the game come to live.

The attention to detail in terms of the visual presentation is amazing. I mean, take this example. There are over 100 different Coromon in this game and each Coromon has their own unique shiny variant and ultimate variant. Tripling the amount of variantions you can have. And each time, the colorsheme of the Coromon just works to make it stand out from the default version. Another example of the great visuals is how each unique area also has unique visuals. It’s almost they created an unique tileset per region instead of recycling parts. It gets a thumbs up from me.

Overall, I have nothing but praising for this game. But is this game flawless? Well, not exactly. This game does make some missteps that can get in the way. The first thing I have to mention is that sometimes, you’ll have to either grind or get quite lucky to defeat a Titan or some trainers. Personally, I didn’t find the grinding in this game too much of a bother honestly. Especially since when my Coromon where to low level, I usually went back to previous area’s to re-explore area’s to battle trainers I have skipped or try to check if I found all hidden items. But, it can’t be avoided. You’ll have to grind sometimes.

Another annoying issue is how the cloud saves work. You can enable the cloud saves in the options menu and it is a “set it and forget it” option. Now, usually I play my Switch also on the train to work. But, on the train I can’t connect my Switch to the internet. So, then I get almost every 2 minutes that annoying error pop-up from the Switch not being able to connect to the internet. I wish there was a sort of check built in that gave a pop-up message so you could easly disable that without having to remember, oh yes… Cloud saves don’t work right now. Or even, when the game notices that it can’t connect online, just don’t do cloud saves or warn the player in another way then every 2 minutes with the default “can’t connect online” system pop-up. It’s a small annoying thing that can easily be fixed in my opinion.

Another small issue that there are almost no moves that can attack two Coromon at the same time. So, this means that when you encounter two Coromon in one battle, you have to take them out one by one. I also find it strange that I can’t fight with two Coromon. These battles feel like as if double battles were going to be implemented but the devs ran out of time and took the double battles out and left this in. It feels a bit unfinished, underexplored of a mechanic.

A small usability improvement that can be made is to show a spinner icon when you have caught a Coromon. It’s a small feature I loved in Pokémon but now that I miss it, I totally understand the usefullness of it.

Another very minor improvement that could have been created is to show the player’s name on the main menu before you load the profile. Would make things a bit easier for families with a shared Switch.

When I read about this game online, I notice that a lot of people are writing it off as a Pokémon clone and lazy. But honestly, I have to disagree. I look at this game from a different angle. It’s another take on the Pokémon formula with some interesting twists like the SP system or Titans instead of gyms. And lazy? I mean, you can use your save file across platfroms. Or there is a nuzlocke mode built in?

I can agree that this game looks on the surface a lot like the first few Pokémon games but what’s so wrong with that? It’s the execution that counts and this game does it amazingly well. What’s wrong with more content/gameplay of a formula that works? If the game followed the exact same path like also in the story and settings… Then it would be a different story. But, Coromon stands proudly on it’s own two feet. I’m happy that I gave this game a try since I’m quite enjoying myself with this game. While it has some flaws, they don’t really hamper the experience in my opinion.

So, if you enjoy old school Zelda or Pokémon, monster collecting games like Yokai Watch or Digimon, adventure JRPG games, I say, give the demo of this game a chance. Maybe you’ll also fall in love with the charm of this game.

And with that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game, I want to thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Game Quicky: The Rat Pack (Itch.io – PC) ~ The Rats Will Take Over

Itch.io page

Indie games can be unique. Today’s game is no different. Today, I want to talk about a game that’s created by the developers of that point-and-click game, Captain Disaster. I honestly expected a new point-and-click game when he contacted me via Twitter and when I heard it was going to be about rats, the edutainment collector part of my brain went directly to Mia: The Mouse, but this game is something completely different. It’s a TBS game, a turn-based strategy game. About rats? This is going to be unique. But, we need to ask, is this going to be the good kind of unique or the bad kind? Let’s find out in this 100% honest review of this game that I get a press review copy for. And yes, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the content of this article and/or the game.

Good rats, pet them

I love this easter egg random event to bits.

The story of this game is about a colony of rats going for bigger and better. Starting off on a farm and going to the big city. I’m so happy that in terms of the story, this game isn’t doing anything silly and trying to put a fantasy spin or something on it… It feels realistic and stays in the background. It’s the perfect set dressing for the game. There is one random event, that I really love. I think you can guess which one is with the screenshot here.

Most of this game is spent on one screen. This is the game screen. There are 5 squares. Let’s start with the easiest to explain. You’ll have the yellow square in the top right, this is where everything that happens during your turn is shown.

The white square in the middle is one that shows special messages. I chose a beta screenshot here on purpose, since this random event message is now one of the various events that have a nice artwork accompanying it. But not every random event has a drawing.

Then, in the bottom left, you have the rat lab. This is your upgrades section. You have 4 things that you can upgrade, and these are essential. Depending on your lab level, you earn a certain amount of lab points per turn. You can upgrade the lab by scavenging for treasure. Each upgrade can improve the skills of your rats to avoid a game over. A game over is when your population reaches zero. That’ll cause you to restart the mission.

I could write a whole article explaining how this whole game works, but the tutorial does an amazing job of that. And not only that, the difficulty curve in this game gets a chef kiss from me. In each mission, a new mechanic is introduced, and you learn easily the amount of depth this game has. You learn when you can risk losing rats in your colony and when you urgently need to do something.

There are three difficulty levels, and you can finish this whole game playing on easy mode. But, the easy mode isn’t a cakewalk. You’ll need to learn the game and think carefully about what you want to do with your colony. And try to not get distracted by the amazing music this game has. Seriously, I would love to buy this soundtrack! Together with the amusing voice work and charming sound effects, the audiovisual presentation is quite good.

At first, I was worried that this game would be boring and repetitive. But, after playing 10 missions so far, I really have to say that I’m quite enjoying myself. With an easy to learn but tricky to master game, I’m impressed with this game. Sadly, there are a few things I didn’t really like, and I’m going to explain them in the next section of this article.

Bad rats, trap them!

So, what does this game do wrong? Well, first, there is no way to save mid-mission. Thankfully, this isn’t too big of an issue, since the missions themselves are sort. Well, I say short, but I have only played this game on easy and normal difficulty, so maybe it’s long on the harder difficulty?

The second negative of this game is a strange design quirk. Why is the pause button “F1” and not “Escape”? It really messed with my hardwired brain.

Overall, the UI design is excellent… But, there is something that would take it to the next level. Currently, when you beat a level, it gets a checkmark. And it doesn’t matter on which difficulty. I would love to see a different color checkmark depending on which difficulty you have beaten the level. Since, currently, the only way to see that is in the achievements’ menu which doesn’t even have a back arrow.

Another flaw in terms of the UI is in the red bottom right corner of the game screen. There are two things wrong with that in the version I reviewed. First, it doesn’t tell you the amount of treasure you’ll need to upgrade the attack and defense of your colony. Secondly, it doesn’t tell you when you can do a raid and how many raids you have done. This is somewhat annoying in some missions where you need to do 5 raids, and you didn’t keep count.

Something I personally missed was some animation in this game. Currently, all random events have a nice drawing, but the attacking and under attack events are too static. Either add a drawing or two for them or have some animation. It would polish up the game that much more.

And that’s about everything. So, shall we go on to the conclusion? Before I ramble on, and on.

So, what we RAT this game out?

Terrible pun aside for this final section of the article, is this game worth your time, or is this conclusion going to rip this game apart? Well, to be very honest, it’s the first. This game is really worth your time. Especially because most of the things I didn’t like about this game can be fixed and fine-tuned with an update or two.

Personally, I wouldn’t recommend this game to everyone. If you enjoy casual/puzzle and turn-based games, I would give this game a chance. But, don’t expect this game to be action-packed. This game is more on the calming and relaxing side. The charm of a small group of creators developing a game is oozing out of this one.

I would really pet this rat and not rat this game out. It’s a great game with some minor flaws. And I can’t wait to finish this game and maybe try the hard difficulty option. And maybe I’m even going to try to fill out that achievement page.

And with that said, I want to wrap up this article and thank you for reading it. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 70/100

Game Quicky: Pnevmo-Capsula: Domiki (PC – Steam) ~ Riding The Message

Steam store page

Today, I want to talk about a game called Pnevmo-Capsula: Domiki. A sort of interactive rollercoaster set in the old Soviet Russia. A game was created by a tiny team that created and published their first game. The developers reached out to me with a press code and asked me to write my 100% honest opinion on the game. So, is this game worth our time and our money, or should the developers try something else for their next project? Or should they stop creating games in the first place? That’s what I’m going to try and figure out in this article. And as usual, I invite to you leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article.

Riding the message

This game is really simple to understand. There are two sections in this game. The riding and the puzzle-solving section. In the riding section, you can control the cart quite easily left and right. You’ll have to look out for holes in the tracks and maybe use different routes to overcome the hole. You’ll also have to disable electric gates, which you can do with your electric shock ability at the end of the wire of the electric gate.

This electric ability is also how you interact with puzzles. Almost all the puzzles are the exact same. You have to start a machine and then figure out the four numbers of the recipient of the message. This might sound boring and repetitive, but the puzzles are all well crafted and fun to solve. I was so happy that I had two monitors, so I could take a screenshot of the list of possible numbers to aid me in solving the puzzle.

These two styles of gameplay give the game a lot of variation. There are eight chapters in this game, and whenever you mess up, you start at the beginning of the chapter. But, everything is still unlocked. So, for example, when you opened several gates… These will stay open when you respawn. This might be a useful trick for speedrunners.

In terms of visuals, this game looks amazing. I have seen games that look several times worse at this price point. There are some rough textures, like at the start of the 2nd chapter and somewhere in the 3rd on the telephone pole, but these moments were far and few in between. The camera work is really stunning. The only thing I would improve a bit is making it a bit more clear when you are at the right spot to interact with a puzzle, gate, or something.

The music and sound effect are decent. Nothing too special in my opinion, but I feel they are good enough to fit the atmosphere and setting of this game. But something else that’s mind-blowing is how, after the first chapter, there are no loading screens in the whole game. And respawning only takes a couple of seconds.

The message is lost

In this game, you play as a capsule. You’re riding on a railroad towards your final location to deliver various messages. That’s the story of this game. Sadly enough, that’s literally IT in terms of story. Apart from some world-building with the puzzles, there is no real story in this game. Why are we delivering messages in this manner? It’s such a shame that for a game that looks as nice as this, there is no real story present.

I don’t mind games that are short in nature. Creating a game is quite difficult, and making unique puzzles is a tricky thing to do. But the runtime of this game is a real shame. This game took me only 2 hours to beat TWICE. Yes, twice. There are no different endings or different ways to beat the game. So yeah, the mechanics and ideas in this game are seriously under-explored.

In general, the controls are good. Yet, there are some things that can be polished up. First of all, you can speed up with the left-hand shift key. And if you have a right-hand shift key, well, that doesn’t work to speed up. Secondly, sometimes in bends, the key I was using to go forward didn’t move the cart forward and almost got stuck. And finally, apart from interacting with the space bar… there is no real “break” button for your cart.

There are some minor things I would have improved as well. For example, it’s quite tricky to control the puzzles in some cases. It’s not always clear what you can do and how to move in the puzzle itself. I think it would be a lot better if you could use the mouse during these sections. Since the mouse is on-screen and can only be used in the menus.

The UI in this game is good, but sometimes it does strange things like not remembering your language. But, the options’ menu is lacking in my opinion. You can disable the music, but there is no volume slider. So, you can’t disable the sound effects, either. The resolutions are quite strange as well. There is a 7680*4320 resolution? Also, the buttons are clickable from anywhere on the screen as long as you are at the same height as them.

But the BIGGEST no-no this game makes is when you finish the game and restart from an earlier chapter, be careful with your save then. Since, as soon as you beat a chapter… All your other progress gets erased. For example, you have beaten chapter 6 and want to replay chapter 1. So, you go back to the main menu, choose chapters, and start chapter one. You finish chapter one, and you go back to the main menu, to start chapter 6… You’ll notice that only chapters 1 and 2 are unlocked! Thankfully, the game is short, so you can go right ahead to the location you were in, but if the game were longer this would have been a grave issue.

A less grave issue is that there is no continue option in the main menu. That’s a bit of polish this game lacks. Like, the strange jitter effect you get when you ram into an electric gate. Or the fact, that you don’t get a visual notification when you finish a chapter besides going through a gate that closes behind you. And the final thing of lacking polish is that only going from chapters 1 to 2, you have a loading screen. When you start from any other point, you’ll get a black screen… Yeah.

And that’s honestly everything I could say about this game. So, I think it’s high time to wrap up this article with the conclusion.

Should the message be delivered?

This game is a decent game for the low price point of €9. But, at its current point, I wouldn’t pay anything more. Especially for the extremely short length of this game. There is so much more that could have been done with the concept and mechanics. For example, a puzzle where you have to deliver several messages in a certain order. Or having to open/close gates.

Besides that, like every other game… This game has some other flaws. Apart from the quirkiness with the chapters, I explained earlier, most of these negatives can be polished with a patch. Apart from the lacking story, of course.

If you enjoy casual puzzle games, I would certainly give this game a look. But, to the developers, I would say, keep working on this game. Keep expanding it with new content and mechanics. If this is your first released game, I would have to say bravo. There is a lot of potential here, and I would love to see longer and more in-depth experiences.

For a small passion project, this game turned out amazing. But, I want to see this game become more than a passion project. Since, when I had beaten the game, I felt cheated. I wanted to see more, play more, but it was over when I was really getting into it.

And with the said, I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you to another one. Until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 3/5

First Impression: Arietta of Spirits (Switch) ~ Being Bound

Nintendo.com subsite – Official website

Family traditions are such a big part of families. One of the biggest family traditions in my family is that at least one person goes to the seaside each and every year. It’s a tradition I don’t want to see end since it brings back so many memories, and it’s also where my love for collecting games started. The amount of garage sales and flea markets I did at the seaside, I can’t count on two hands. Anyway, today I want to talk about a game that means a lot to me currently and also talks about family traditions. And that’s Arietta of Spirits. A little indie game by Third Spirit Games and Red Art Games. It caught my attention since it looked like an interesting Zelda-ish clone, and it reminded me of games like Blossom Tales. But is this game as good as that one? Let’s find out together, shall we? But before we start, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section down below with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of this article.

Being bound

In this game, you take on the role of Arietta. After the passing of her grandmother, here family takes a trip to her house on the island. Now, it doesn’t take a long time before Arietta discovers that she has a special ability when she meets a mysterious friend. She can see and talk to the spirits on the island. And not only that, she can help them move on.

Currently, I’m midway in the story and while this game has a good setting, writing and atmosphere, I feel that’s something is missing. The story is currently a bit “loose”. There is not really an overarching reason to move the story forward. If you asked me to explain what happens in the story of this game, I can talk about the characters you meet and their stories but the reason why you meet these characters and what Arietta’s end goal is… I can’t tell. Of course, there is a line in the story that “explains” it, but it’s so generic…

Now, this doesn’t mean that this game has a weak story. Far from it. The character development and writing in this game is pretty nice. But, there is a lot of wasted potential because this game is rather short. There is so much more that can be done with the story and idea, but the game is over when it really gets started.

There is no real voice acting in this game apart from some grunts by our main character. So, if you don’t like that, this isn’t the game for you. Yet, the dialogues are somewhat fast-paced and flow pretty nicely. One of the taglines of this game is that this game doesn’t have a lot of filler moments and this is quite true. This game has some side quests but barely any filler at all. Yet, I felt that some moments might have left a bigger impact if the story didn’t go on such a break neck speed.

Entry level Zelda game

If you have played games like Blossom Tales or any 2D Zelda game, you’ll feel right at home. This game is your typical 2D Zelda game where you go from dungeon to dungeon and defeat bosses. Well, they aren’t really dungeons, it is more themed area’s, but explaining that would spoil parts of the story. But, there are some unique mechanics in this game.

For example, there are two types of enemies. The first type are your normal overworld enemies. And sadly, they are your “generic” bee/bats. But, they have interesting movement patterns and learning and avoiding them is quite fun. Apart from maybe dropping a health pick-up, these enemies aren’t anything to write home about.

The other type of enemies are the “spirit” enemies. These are trickier to defeat, and after defeating these, you’ll earn crystals. Earn enough crystals to fill up a demon core, and Arietta grows stronger. It’s quite easy to farm these crystals, since enemies respawn when you leave and re-enter the area. But, I dislike the fact that when a certain core is filled, you can’t pick up any more crystals. Well, you can pick them up, but it doesn’t raise your total.

So, when you have enough crystals to power up your Roamer Cores, power it up right away. Otherwise, you’ll lose various crystals and have to grind for them. You can power your core up in the inventory menu under “Roamer Cores”.

Speaking of the inventory menu, why are there two menus in the Switch version? You have a pause menu and an inventory menu. The pause menu is opened with the “+” button and the inventory menu with the “-” button. It trips me up. Then again, I totally understand why this is the case in how the menus are designed. That’s why I call the “-” the inventory menu since it’s really the menu where you can see the inventory, your goals, your achievements… While the pause menu is more of an options menu.

A bit higher, you can see the inventory menu. From that screenshot, you can also see the various other mechanics. Like, the tasks where you have to find hidden items and the amount of hidden spirit cubs you have found. Now, you might think that you’ll need the item’s menu often, but alas. The opposite is true.

There aren’t a lot of puzzles in this game. I’m even having a hard time saying there are puzzles in this game. Maybe the fact that you need to figure out how to defeat the bosses most optimally but other than, that… There aren’t really any puzzles in this game. And if there are, they aren’t cryptic or challenging enough to matter.

Something that’s extremely puzzling is the fact that there is no world map of any kind to speak off. Thankfully, this isn’t a huge game, but the lack of a world map really hurts sometimes. Especially when I want to explore an area to complete a task. It adds so much more time roaming around. You could also argue that it makes the game a bit more realistic since when you are exploring an island, you don’t have a map either… But you can either make one or have a map printed out from the internet.

Once you get the hang of the responsive and easy to master controls, this game isn’t too challenging at all. This game really feels like it’s an entry level adventure game. And you can look at this in two ways. It can be either a relaxing time to enjoy the story, but it can be boring since it’s not “engaging” or challenging.

Thankfully, this game has difficulty options. I started on the normal difficulty and found it too easy. So, after getting halfway in the game, I wanted a bit more challenge. So, I had to use the dodge, shield mechanics more to defeat enemies and not rely on health drops from cutting down bushes. I wanted to start a new save file on extreme, and I learned I wasn’t able to skip cutscenes. I sighed, and I continued playing my “normal difficulty” save file. I can totally understand that when you play through a game for this first time you are unable to skip cutscenes, but the fact you can unlock an additional difficulty after beating the game and the fact I can’t skip cutscenes worries me a bit. But, maybe you have that option then…

Joyful lost

So, because this game doesn’t have a world map… I have to admit that I got lost a few times. But, it didn’t matter too much. I really enjoyed being able to explore the island. Especially since the pixel art and design of this game is gorgeous. I really love the visual presentation of this game. I also love the animation quite a lot.

The animation makes the game a lot more immersive, but it makes the game also easier. Since the enemies telegraph their attacks so bluntly, it makes it easier to avoid. Now, there is this small mechanic that I really like.

At first, I wanted to talk about how when you have low health in this game, you barely get any feedback from the game. But then, I noticed something. My joycons vibrated in a heart beat whenever I was on low health. This is genius. The only small touch I would add is a bit more visual feedback on the screen since when you are fighting, you might miss that rumbling, especially since you are quite focused on dodging enemies and such.

Something I also quite like in this game is how the roll is handled. You can roll around to get faster to your destination, but you have stamina. The more you roll, the more fatigued Arietta gets and the shorter her rolls are. You can see how tired Arietta is by the amount of sweat dripping down her face. This really makes me think what the most optimal way is to roll and go fast. Since, there is no sprint button.

Sometimes, I got lost in area’s with a lot of enemies. The first time I got a game over, I was quite worried where I was going to respawn. But, this game is quite forgiving in that. You respawn at the start of the screen you died at. When you die at a boss, you start right at the beginning of the battle. It’s quite nice to get directly back into the action and not have to go through the whole dialogue of the boss again or having lost a lot of progress. The game auto-saves every time you change in a screen.

The final thing I want to talk about is the audiovisual presentation of this game. Let’s start with the sound effects. These are amazing. The sound effects really help you to prepare yourself for the upcoming map and to take the right actions in combat. For example, the flying bat screeches before it flies at you, so when you hear it… You know that it’s time to dodge. But, the sound effects can be helpful too to find cubs. When you get close to one, you hear it shouting. It has a distinct sound effect that really helped me find the more hidden ones.

This brings me to the music of this game. The calm vibe and atmosphere of the game really comes through in the music. The soundtrack mostly feels like lounge and relaxing music. But, it can be quite tense when it needs to. Especially the battle music. But it fits the game like a glove.

Now, what do I think overall of this game? I haven’t beaten it yet, but what is my conclusion after getting past the midway point of this game? The charm and love of this game is something quite unique. This game does have some flaws like no overworld map, more puzzles, being able to skip cutscenes…

But, what bothers me the most is that the potential of this story and setting isn’t used to its full potential in this short game. Yet, like I said earlier, the charm of this game makes up for quite a lot of it. I can totally understand that some people might not really like this game or get bored with it, but this game really got its hooks in me. For me, this game is an easy recommendation if you are looking for a nice and relaxing game to spend an afternoon or two.

What this game proves to me is that I’m going to keep an eye out for further projects from the developers, since I really think they have a lot of potential. I’m curious what they are going to do next. If they are going to make a sequel to this game, you can be sure I’m going to buy it. The charm and love of this game is infectious.

I really enjoyed playing through this game and I can’t wait to see how this game ends. It’s really a relaxing game, and it comes at the right moment in my life when I need something to calm me down after busy work days. This game is really a case of the positives outweighing the negatives for me. But, I’m repeating myself. So, it’s time to close off this article by saying my usual:

Thank you so much for reading my article, and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another one, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Game Quicky: Superliminal (Switch) ~ Objects are differently shaped than they appear.

Nintendo.com microsite – Wikipedia entry

I remember seeing a game floating around on the internet many years ago. I even bookmarked the page I saw it on, since I wanted to keep myself up-to-date on future updates. It looked extremely cool and had a lot of potential to have amazing puzzles and mind binding twists. But that was in 2014-2015 if I remember correctly. Then, I honestly forgot about the game, and it fell off my radar. Not too long ago, I was cleaning out my overload of bookmarks and I suddenly found that game again. That reminded me about the game and when I suddenly saw it on my Nintendo Switch eShop that evening, I knew that I had to buy it right away. So, the game released a year ago, and I totally forgot about it. Oh well, that’s no big deal. Since, now, I have a lot of time to find out if my expectations were correct or if I shouldn’t have started playing this game. Now, while I have beaten the game now, I’m going to review this game in my game quicky style of articles since it’s rather short. But more on that later, let’s find out if this game is good or not, while I invite you to leave a comment with your thoughts and/or opinions in the comment section down below.

Objects are better shaped than they appear.

In this game, you are taken on a trip to the Pierce Institute to help test a new technology. This new technology is to help people with therapy using dreams. In these dreams, you can manipulate objects in some very strange ways. But, since this is a video game, something goes wrong. Instead of waking up, you get stuck inside the dream world due to Emergency Exit Protocol failing for whatever reason. So, it’s up to you to figure out why and to leave the dreamworld.

Now, I wish I could say more, but it would spoil the amazing story and strong message that this game has. This game is, give or take, 3 hours long if you only want to beat it and not 100% complete it. The story telling and voice acting in this game is so well crafted. The game spoke to me on a personal level several times. The game is also filled with some amazing life advice, and I’m so glad I played through it.

The main mechanic in this game is that perspective matters. A lot. You can enlarge or shrink certain objects in this game, so you can reach higher ledges or jump over huge gaps. The best way I can explain it, is if you go away from objects, they appear to “shrink” and when you get closer, they appear to “enlarge”. Now, image that when the “shrinking” or “enlarging” is happening, the object actually takes those dimensions. So, suddenly the cheese wheel can become a giant ramp for you to walk on. If you don’t really understand what I’m trying to explain here, take a look at these gifs, I think they might explain it way better.

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I’m not going to show more or explain more of the mechanics since, it would ruin the surprises and the unique and amazingly crafted puzzles that this game has. This game can become quite tricky, but remember, it’s all a matter of having the right perspective and understanding the space you are in. Each section introduces its own unique spin or mechanic on the perspective puzzle theme, and it’s just great. I had so much fun trying to figure them all out.

Something that surprised me is that with the various elements that this game has and with the unique shrink/enlarge mechanics, it’s so well optimized. I didn’t experience any slowdowns nor did I experience any graphical glitches. Now, this is when you play the game normally. And why am I saying this? Well, it’s because the game actually encourages you to speedrun it once or twice. The Steam achievements of this game are ported over to the Nintendo Switch version. And I think I might give it a go myself one day. The controls of this game are solid enough and I think they are responsive enough for me to speedrun this game. I learned them extremely quickly and mastered them fast as well.

It would be an amazing way to dive right back into this amazing adventure and to go through the well detailed levels again. Visually, this game is stunning. While I think that the game has some moments that might trigger players that aren’t too good with flashing lights, I was amazed with the detail and visual presentation that this game has. The game also has a lot of triggers, so you don’t softlock yourself. For example, if you shrink the exit door and throw it in a trash can, the exit door spits it right back out. One animation detail I loved is seeing all the different jokes the developer made with the loading screens. You’ll have to see it to understand what I mean, but they were a nice way to do something unique with a loading screen instead of having a boring static or short moving image…

Apart from the objects you can interact with, this game doesn’t have a lot of animations. But, the animations it does have pulled you into the game so much more. Including with the enjoyable sound design. It has been at least a month since I have beaten this game since I’m writing this article and I can still remember the sound effects, how the voice acting sound and how the music sounds.

Speaking about the music, most of the soundtrack of this game is extremely relaxing and sounds extremely dreamy. The great use of the piano and, which is the center instrument in this soundtrack, and it’s just lovely. It’s that lovely, I actually bought the game again on Steam since it includes the soundtrack and some official Lo-Fi remixes as DLC.

Objects are worse shaped than they appear.

So far, I’m talking quite positively about this game. While I enjoy this game an awful lot and I even dare to say that it wouldn’t surprise me that I put it on my top 10 games of 2021 list, I do have several things that I disliked about this game and that made the experience less enjoyable.

While I barely experienced any bugs, I did fall three times through the map in similar ways. Once, I was pushed out of the map when I made a way too big object fall on me. Another time I fell through the map when getting on the roof of a building and trying to get onto the wall (which wasn’t the solution, by the way) and I don’t remember what triggered the 3_^rd time. Thankfully, the game autosave quite often, so I didn’t lose too much progress. But, it was a bit annoying that there is no death plane underneath the maps that automatically reset you to the latest checkpoint. So, thankfully, you have the “reset” option in the game.

Something I feel extremely mixed about is the game’s length. This game is so short but the mechanics it has, have so much potential, it’s a shame. I really think that this game should have a sequel where even trickier puzzles are introduced. On the other hand, due to the short length, the story has barely any bloat or unneeded sections and flows extremely nicely. Let’s just say that I’m quite jealous of the Steam workshop features that the PC version has. While it’s amazing that I can take this game on the go and show it off to other people, I’m also glad I bought the PC version to not only have the DLC but play more of this game.

Now, while I personally had a ton of fun with this game… When I really look at the game and take a step back… In terms of gameplay, this game could have been so much stronger. I honestly have to agree with what other critics are saying about this game to a certain degree. That some mechanics are seriously underused. Not to say that the puzzles in this game are bad, far from it. I think the biggest issue is that the games’ hooks are so good that the short length to conserve the story flow actually hurt it somewhat. I do heavily disagree with the “lackluster” story. But that’s maybe because it spoke to me on a personal level.

But, yeah, the underused mechanics are such a shame. Yet! Don’t care because it’s over, be happy that it happened. And maybe play some custom-made workshop levels via the Steam version. Meanwhile, I’m crossing my fingers for a sequel or DLC content to expand on the universe and lore of this game.

Objects’ true sizes

So, in conclusion. What do I think of the Switch version of this game? Is it worth your time, or should you buy another version or totally skip this game? Personally, I would highly recommend this game. But, do play it in one sitting. I personally think that the message that the story has it that much stronger when you get it all in one go.

The big novelty of the Switch version is that you can easily take it on the go. Of course, with the right laptop you can also take this game on the go, but the Switch is more convenient. But know that this game’s short length might annoy you, since like I explained earlier, the hooks of the game are that good. If you want to get the most out of this game, I think that the PC version might be the better option here, since it looks like it’s more actively developed, and it has the Steam Workshop with custom content!

Overall, this game does do a lot right. It has a strong story, fun and unique mechanics, amazing atmosphere, great visual presentation but due to some minor bugs and especially the short length, this game might be a difficult sell for some people. But if anything sounded interesting from what I have said in this article, please give this game a go. I really meant in what I said earlier. I wouldn’t surprise me if this game turns up in my top 10 games of 2021 list.

If you are interested in this game, I highly recommend going as blind as possible in this game. Reading too much about this game will ruin various surprises and twists this game takes. It’s like the Stanley Parable. A great short game that leaves so much impact on me as a player, and maybe it does with you too. And if it doesn’t have the same strong impact on you, you might have played a unique puzzle game that challenge your perception abilities and skills. Since, I think this game found the right perception.

What that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game. I hope you enjoyed reading this article and much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care!

Score: 90/100

Want to read another review of this game? Well, visit my friend Indiecator, Dan or Magi and read his review here: https://indiecator.home.blog/2021/11/11/indietail-superliminal//

Game Quicky: Grood (Switch) ~ Not That Three One.

Steam version – Nintendo.com page – Official website

Drageus Games is at it again, they published a new game called Grood. Not to be confused with Marvel’s character named “Groot”. Fun fact, groot is actually a Dutch word as well. When you literally translate it into English, it means big. Anyways, I’m getting off track. Drageus Games provided me with a press copy to take an honest look at this game and in this article I’m going to take a look at this 2,5D side scrolling shooter by CC_Arts. Is it any good or should you skip this indie title for 5€? Let’s find out while I invite you to shoot me a comment in the comment section down below with your opinion on the game and/or the content of this (game quicky) article. 

Editorial note: this review has been written while playing v1.1.0.

Load the canons!

The story of this game is short and simple. There are a lot of enemy robots and machines out there, so you build a big attack ship called Grood. You want to take on the enemy with this ship and you set out on a mission for it.

In terms of story, there isn’t much more. On one hand, this can be seen as a negative by some people but I personally see it as a positive for this game. The focus of this game is the gameplay and not telling a story. So, it doesn’t get in the way at all. Also, this time it’s in the game instead of only in the description of the game in the eShop.

Something that I found a huge positive for this game is the fact that there is a co-op feature. It would be a huge ask to have an online co-op as well, but hey. I’m surprised that there is a co-op mode. I do have a small nitpick about it, but I’m going to talk about that in the negatives section of this article.

Let me tell you, this game doesn’t fool around. The epilepsy warning at the start of the game is a serious warning since there are some flashing imagery in this game. This game is anything except a cakewalk. At first, I was afraid that this game would use a lot of unfair or unbalanced ways to make the game “more difficult” but I was pleasantly surprised.

This game hits the right balance at being challenging but not too challenging. The pattern of the enemies are easy to learn and avoid. This game doesn’t go into bullet hell mode or spawn a ton of enemies you have to damage through. In most cases, there are one or two enemies who are a bit too cheap in my opinion. At the start of the 3rd level, there is this ship that shoots lazers without too much of a warning in which direction making it too much of a cheap shot.

The damage system is quite interesting as well. The more damage you take, the less color there is during gameplay. Yet, this game throws an unique wrench in the mix. It simulates a broken screen so you have to also think where to aim your bullets since you can’t line them up properly anymore.

There is also this slow motion mechanic. Once you have defeated a certain amount of enemies, you can go into slowdown mode. Everything, even your own ship, slows down so you can plan out your shots even more. You notice how much more time you have in the slow-motion mode with the battery next to your score. It has to be full before you can start it and it has to be depleted to exit out of the mode. You can’t start or stop the slow-motion at will.

You could think that this game can be cheesed by hanging at the bottom at passing through the levels quite easily. Yet, you shoot yourself in the foot with that tactic. Since this game also focuses on high scores. There is even a leader board in the main menu. I only wish it told me on what platforms these scores where achieved since I would love to see which platforms have the highest score.

Visually, this game looks extremely nice. In terms of animation and visual presentation, I don’t have any complaints. The animation of text appearing is a nice touch and pleases the computer scientist in me greatly. The game runs quite smooth through the detailed terrain and I rarely experience frame drops or slowdowns.

Speaking of impressive visuals: you can play this game in “90’s love modus”. If you enable this option in the options menu, you go from the 3D visual artstyle to pixelart with the same attention to detail that the 3D-style brings. This makes the retro gamer inside of me extremely happy. I do have two minor complaints about it and that’s the score isn’t readable enough in TV mode as well as the health bar. But these can be fixed with a minor patch I think.

This game feels quite gratifying to play. The quite responsive controls is another part the helps achieve that fact. Add an nice metal soundtrack with great sound design and you get a game where you have that “one more round” mentality.

This game has been localized in 4 languages. Which I find a bit strange, since usually Drageus Games has more languages then 4. This game can be played in English, Russian, Spanish and Italian. Since I only speak English out of these 4, I can’t review or talk about the quality of the translation.

Let’s forget about the cannons

No game is perfect, and this game made a few mistakes. Since I only played the Switch port, I can’t say that these issues appear on other platforms but these things were a bit of a downer on my experience.

First of all, let’s talk about the health situation. While the draining of color is a interesting mechanic that has been used in other games like Tomb Raider, sometimes it’s quite unclear how much health I still had left. This made me play too careful sometimes.

Secondly, let’s talk about that silly “continue” feature. I can understand that you only have one life and when you are death, you have to restart the whole game. But, I think it would make the game more accessible and ease the tension a bit when the player had more or infinite lives. With the consequence, that when a player died, there score was reset to 0 or they could “pay with their score” to revive. That way people can still finish the game but try and get a high score to get higher on the leaderboards. Also, that would provide a solution that you could only continue when you have beaten level 4.

Thirdly, let’s talk about the UI. It makes a few mistakes alright. While the visual design is quite cool and interesting to use… It suffers in the usability department. Take the credits for example, these are unreadable while you are in TV mode due to the angle of the menu.

Another bigger example is the options menu. Each option brings you to a submenu. Apart from the vibration option, that can be set in that menu. Now, if only you could feel a sample of the vibration and we would be set.

But the biggest issue with the UI I have is something quite simple. I find it extremely strange that you can’t go back to the main menu during gameplay. You either have to restart the game or have a game over.

Fourthly, in this negatives section of this article I want to mention that there is no overview of the controls. Since the tutorial only appears the first time and doesn’t appear after that, that means you have to figure out the game on your own if you take a break or let a friend play.

Fifthly, why o why isn’t there a sort of level leaderboard? Wouldn’t it be cool to know which are the high scores per level? Or in what level a certain high score was achieved?

And finally, let’s talk about the co-op mode. I do have one gripe with it. Earlier I talked about the health situation. Image that issue but now you have two ships and you are unable to tell who is almost dead and who has still a lot of health points. Let’s not forget to mention the fact that there is no tutorial in this game so your partner has to figure everything out from either you or trail and error.

So, let’s save or not?

Is this game worth it or should you skip it? Well, it depends. There is a lot going for this game. It’s challenging and fun. It has that one more round mentality and it has a lot of competition with the high scores and leaderboards. Yet, with only having one live, this game can feel quite unforgiving.

The biggest mistakes are made in the UI department. There are some things that really bothered me and made me quite thankful that the Switch has some features to easily reset the game.

Would I be able to recommend this game to anybody? Yes! I would recommend this game to anybody who enjoy side scrolling shooters. This game quite well done and has a lot of love put into it. It does have a ton of minor issues that make the game a bit less enjoyable but apart from the one live – restart situation, most of the things shouldn’t get too much in the way of enjoying this game.

I have left out one mechanic from this review for those who want to give this game a try and want to still have a surprise left. I’m rather curious what you guys and girls think about it. But, apart from that, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game.

So, I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 3.5/5